Earlier this evening The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the winners of their annual film awards. Most of the awards went entirely as expected, but there were a small number of surprises as well.
Best Picture went to the silent film The Artist as was expected, along with four other awards, including Best Director (Michel Hazanavicius) and Best Actor (Jean Dujardin). This put it at a tie with Martin Scorsese‘s own tribute to silent film, Hugo, winning five of its own, including Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography.
The biggest surprise of the evening came in the Best Actress category. All signs seemed to be pointing towards Viola Davis winning the award, especially since she won the same category from the Screen Actors Guild. Instead, Meryl Streep, on her 17th Oscar nomination, took home her third trophy for her excellent work in The Iron Lady.
A few smaller surprises that occurred over the evening included Hugo‘s unexpected wins in Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. Those categories were expected to go to The Tree of Life and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, respectively, as they had conquered these categories throughout awards season. The last surprise came in Best Film Editing, which was expected to go to The Artist, but instead, in what seemed like a rather random pick, went to David Fincher‘s take on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
On a side note, it was good to see Billy Crystal back hosting the awards. He had some pretty good moments in there including his usual opening number as well as a short film that had him digitally placed into some of the evening’s nominees. One thing’s for sure, he certainly made more of an impact than the disastrous teaming of James Franco and Anne Hathaway from last year.
Overall, my predictions weren’t that bad. I only missed the four categories I mentioned earlier as they were pretty big upsets. It just goes to show that sometimes the Academy can still surprise us, even if their choices don’t end up being the best ones. Now we can sit back and hope that the rest of 2012 will bring us several great movies. However, with films like The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Dark Knight Rises coming up, it doesn’t look like we have to worry about that too much.
The big winners of the evening:
5 Wins – The Artist, Hugo
2 Wins – The Iron Lady
Please see below for a complete list of the winners of the 84th Annual Academy Awards:
Best Picture: The Artist
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Best Actress: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Original Screenplay: Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne & Nat Faxon & Jim Rash, The Descendants
Best Foreign Language Film: Iran, A Separation
Best Documentary Feature: TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay & Richard Middlemas, Undefeated
Best Animated Feature: Gore Verbinski, Rango
Best Cinematography: Robert Richardson, Hugo
Best Film Editing: Kirk Baxter & Angus Wall, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best Art Direction: Dante Ferretti & Francesca Lo Schiavo, Hugo
Best Costume Design: Mark Bridges, The Artist
Best Original Score: Ludovic Bource, The Artist
Best Sound Editing: Philip Stockton & Eugene Gearty, Hugo
Best Sound Mixing: Tom Fleischman & John Midgley, Hugo
Best Visual Effects: Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman & Alex Henning, Hugo
Best Makeup: Mark Coulier & J. Roy Helland, The Iron Lady
Best Documentary Short: Daniel Junge & Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Saving Face
Best Animated Short: William Joyce & Brandon Oldenburg, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Best Live Action Short: Terry George & Oorlagh George, The Shore
Best Original Song: Bret McKenzie, Man or Muppet
